Work Work Work Work Play!!

Hello everyone!!! Since I've finally started a full-time job, I've realized that working is exhausting! Not that my job is strenuous by any means, but waking up earlier than my previous time of 8:45 so that I could catch Kelly & Michael means that I'm now ready for bed by 7! Now that I'm missing Kelly & Michael (which really is by no means any sort of loss), it's taken me a couple weeks to hit my stride for after work/weekend activities. But I feel like I really have the last week!

Wednesday, instead of going home and making a PF Changs frozen meal, I ended up with my bestie and boyfriend downtown! We hit up Rustico for some happy hour specials, and this was our view:

Pretty nice if I do say so!! And the food and drinks were even better. I had a cocktail aptly named, "summer in a glass." It was the perfect drink to sit outside in the perfect weather and enjoy. We decided to share a meal of appetizers, and man was that a good decision! We had an antipasto platter, fried cheese stuffed olives, and calamari. It was absolutely the perfect meal! We were still a bit hungry afterwards, so we walked down the boardwalk about ten feet, grabbed another outside table at the Ale House, and enjoyed some jumbo-pretzels with a spicy cheese sauce! By that time we were pleasantly stuffed, and ready to head home and relax. I'm not gonna lie, I still went to bed pretty early that night haha. However it was such a good time we are hoping to do it on a bi-weekly basis, or even weekly if we can find good enough specials! Don't want to go broke over happy hour.

Charlie and I continued to be social Friday night, and had some friends over to grill out and watch the first Packers game of the season!!! Can you believe it's football season all ready?! It was a fun evening, and something I'm sure we will continue to do throughout the season. Although, we might not still be grilling in December. I may be a native Wisconsinite, but I see no reason to freeze my (aka Charlie the grill master's) bottom off just to grill some burgers in the middle of winter. 

But now on to my favorite part of the week, taking Charlie to his first Wisconsin State Fair ever!!! The weather was perfect once again, and the food delicious as always. We started with roasted corn on the cob, dipped in butter of course, with some seasoned salt for extra flavor. Then had the peanut butter bacon bites and berry weiss jelly. And after that, between the two of us, we ate some bacon wrapped tater tots, an italian sausage (from usingers of course), fried pepper-jack and bacon mac & cheese bites, 4 wine samples (who knew Wisconsin had vineyards?!), and I'm pretty sure it goes without saying, a cream puff. Which was extra-special as it was also Charlie's first state fair cream puff! And everyone knows you haven't had a cream puff until you've had a cream puff at the Wisconsin state fair. Can't get much better! Unfortunately I do not have a picture of this experience since I was too busy enjoying my own cream puff. I did, however, manage to snag this picture of Charlie enjoying the cattle barn!

Once again, my inability to smell anything came in handy. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed the animal barns much more than him without the smell of manure to bother me! 

So now I'm enjoying another lazy Sunday before I get to some ironing! And oh yeah, a fantasy football draft. Which was not my idea...but someone thinks I won't actually be horrible at it. And needs me to create an even numbered team haha. 

Until next time! 

I'm Back!!!

So....It's been awhile! Primarily because I was silly enough to think I would get a job within a week or two of moving back. Which did not happen. And was very stressful. So even though I was doing lots of fun stuff, I always felt like I wasn't doing enough because I still couldn't get a job, so I never wanted to write a post.

But now I have a job!! A really great job at a great company too! So that's pretty awesome!

Also in recent news:

I donated to locks of love, good bye 11 inches of hair!!

I went up north! It was so pretty!

I got my official diploma in the mail! So I'm extra officially graduated now!

I saw Hoodie Allen in concert, it was an awesome show!

My boyfriend got a grill!! Nom nom nom

And yeah, that's about all I can think of at the moment that happened in my life. But most importantly, I HAVE A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Walk Down Memory Lane

So after moving back into my mom's house, one of the first things that needed to be done after unpacking ~6 suitcases, and six medium sized boxes (that contained everything material in my life), was to find space for all the stuff!!!

This resulted in two large rubbermaid containers with stuff I would not need immediately, and a whole lot of cleaning of the million boxes and piles of random stuff from long ago that for some reason I once thought I should keep (broken sunglasses, really?). While most of this stuff was easily parted with, some I felt were worth keeping. My favorites follow!!

This is a drawing by my brother, or actually a small part of a very long series of drawings that involved Mr. Invisible and various associated characters if I remember right. Apparently seeing this literally made my brother laugh out loud in the library, and considering he is beginning a very stressful week with five different final exams (he's in med school!!), this is clearly some priceless artwork!

This is a Valentine from a secret admirer!! Just kidding, it's from my friend Skippy, haha. It may be from middle school, but that girl can always make me smile! 

Look at that perspective!! The color!! The shading!! But not the shrubs. And not the parts where the perspective is off. Still, I worked so hard on this in my high school art class that I just can't bring myself to get rid of it! Seriously, I put a lot of hours in this drawing! But then kind of gave up on the shrubs...you would think an Environmental Studies major like myself would be better at drawing plants. 

Of course, there is still half a closet full of barbies and Molly doll stuff. Gotta save it for my future daughter right?! But let's not share a picture of all that...

Back to Blogging!

Hello Everyone!! You may remember me from such blogs as A Cheesehead Among the Kiwis, and now I'm back, sharing my adventures again!

This adventure is a little different though, it's about returning home to Wisconsin after being away for a long time. Yes I did come back to visit, but I'm sure we can all agree that visiting a place and living in a place yield very different results. I lived in Denver for two years, and then studied abroad in New Zealand for one, before returning for my final year of school in Denver. My senior year was interesting to say the least, and while it was awesome in some respects, in many others it was pretty rough. So after travelling and living about as far from home as I could get in New Zealand, returning to the states made me realize that it wasn't so much about where in the world I was, but who I was with that made my best memories. So I started to think, maybe Wisconsin isn't all that bad, maybe coming back home would actually be pretty nice! And then I met an amazing guy, and it was about that time that I decided my next adventure needed to be going back home. My freshman self would have been horrified, but now I realize that coming home is not a step backwards, but a step in a different direction (or maybe just a step towards tastier cheese). 

But don't worry!! I don't plan on settling down quite yet, I've still got a whole world to see! However, my adventurous side is craving someplace just a little more comfortable at the moment. 

So now let me tell me about the last week or so of my life:

Thursday, May 2nd: Took my last final of my undergraduate career!! 

Saturday, May 4th: My family arrived in Denver to help me celebrate four years of hard work  at Regis with lots of delicious food, and a few drinks here and there.

Sunday, May 5th: Graduation ceremony!!! It's official, I'm a college graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies, and a Business Administration minor with an emphasis in Marketing! I even managed to graduate magna cum laude! 

"I'm a college grad?! When did that happen?!

I may miss my tiny house on Hooker Street, my roomie, and Spartacus, the world's cutest dog, but I am happy to be home! 

After the ceremony and a quick lunch before people had to jet off back to their homes, my mom and I spent the afternoon and evening packing up alllllllllll of my stuff. 

Monday, May 6th: We woke up early and finished packing before heading to the airport, and finally at 7:30 pm central time, I was back in Wisconsin, for good!!

Since then, I've been running all sorts of errands (including getting some snazzy new glasses), spending time with my wonderful boyfriend and awesome family, and even sneaking in a job interview yesterday! I've still got lots of unpacking to do, but why do that when I could be blogging?!

As you can see, I've had quite the week! But I am looking forward to many more busy weeks to come! And on the radar for this summer so far, I've already got getting a job, a trip to the boundary waters, and so much more that I'll be sure to tell you all about!!